Battlefield 3 announced: Watch the trailer

First-person shooter fans, get excited: Battlefield 3 is on the way, in all its explosive, environment-destroying glory.

The announcement for EA’s Battlefield 3 first appeared Friday on a new website for the game. And while there aren’t a whole lot of details available just yet, EA was kind enough to release a teaser trailer that they hope will leave fans wanting more.

The hotly anticipated Battlefield 3 is being built on developer Dice’s uber-powerful Frostbite 2 engine, which is expected to give players the ability to shoot, stab or blow up more of the game’s environment than any other game before it. (Battlefield Bad Company and Medal of Honor were both developed using previous versions of Frostbite.)

The Battlefield series first launched in 2002 with the Windows-only release of Battlefield 1942, which took place in a World War 2 setting. Battlefield 2, on the other hand, took place in a fictional war between the United States, China and a group of countries in the Middle East. Battlefield 3 is a direct sequel to this story line.

While we don’t yet know an exact release date, we do know Battlefield 3 will launch this fall on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The game is available for pre-order for $49.95.

Unfortunately, the intentionally-grainy trailer doesn’t give us much to go on. Rather than actual game footage, it’s mostly just a bunch of vague explosions and music that sounds like something you’d hear at a bad German nightclub. So, while we’re guessing this game is going to be awesome, playing it could just make you feel like you’ve had one too many drinks. At this point, who knows?

If you want to keep up-to-date on all things Battlefield 3, EA has, of course, launched a Twitter feed and a Facebook page for the game.